Melissa Hollman

American Ignorance to Colonialism

            The sun is high in a cloudless sky and feels nice on my skin as I gaze out into the endless crystal blue water.  I enjoy this beautiful view from a comfortable lounge with white sand between my toes while the sweat beading off my exotic drink topped with an umbrella helps to cool me.  This is the image that would come to mind when I would hear the word Caribbean.  The Western fantasy of all-inclusive resorts and magical getaways is the epitome of the post-colonial world that the native of this island despises, and how can we blame them?  Our American ignorance often causes us to loose site of the world around us keeping us from seeing the real beauty these islands have to offer.

            The study of colonial and post-colonial literature helps to tell the stories of people forever changed by the force of another.  The novel serves as the “defining genre of modernity” by which future generations may learn from the lives of others by offering the reader an invitation into a different world.  The novel also offers the reader the ability to relate to and empathize with another’s experience that they can only find in the pages of that book.

            The story of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid help to define the genre of the novel by exploring the experience of the individual.  The novels intertextual relationship stems from the ways the characters lives both speak of the experiences of colonialism.  A Small Place, also by Jamaica Kincaid, finds a voice in the intertextual conversation among the aforementioned novels by adding to the discussion of the Antiguan conflicts under colonial rule from a post-colonial perspective.

            In class we discussed the idea of the self and the other.  A contemporary view of this idea is the fact that as a person born and raised in the United States we tend to extend the idea of “the other” to people who were not born in America and have migrated to the United States.  In the novels we have read thus far we see how the idea of self and other changes as we learn how the protagonist’s cultural and societal differences play a distinct role in their ability to adjust to their new lives.  In Defoe’s novel Crusoe spends a brief time as “the other” when he is forced to live as a servant in Portugal.  As Crusoe escapes from servitude he allows Xury to come with him but ends up selling him though Xury did not belong to him.  Crusoe and Xury are both literally and physically in the same boat but because of Crusoe’s European values he does not see Xury as an equal but determines his value by the color of his skin.

  For the majority of the novel Crusoe is stranded on an island and is the sole inhabitant except for the occasional visits from the cannibals.  Crusoe exhibits his European mindset by acting as the colonizer and owner of the island and assumes ownership of all the islands natural resources and animals that he finds.  Crusoe’s idea of entitlement and European views is most disturbing when Crusoe longs to know the company of another human being and when Friday finally arrives he makes him an addition to his property.  However, Crusoe and Friday develop a friendship but Crusoe always reminds us of their primary relationship of master and slave.  It is apparent that Friday’s attachment to Crusoe is stronger than Crusoe’s to Friday as evidenced by Crusoe and Friday’s discussion about Friday going back to his home.  Friday takes a hatchet and gives it to Crusoe and says “take, kill Friday, no send Friday away (179).”  Friday loves Crusoe so much that he would rather die than go back to his home and live without him.  In this touching expression of Friday’s affection for his master Crusoe finally understands how much of an impact he has made on Friday and no longer harbors the jealousy that he once had.     

The use of narrative and dialogue in this novel is interesting because the majority of the novel is made up of the narrative of Crusoe’s voyage and his time alone on the island.  In the beginning of the novel when Crusoe is speaking with his parents about leaving home we get a sense for Crusoe’s expected purpose in life to follow his parents teaching and live the middle- class life.  It is through this dialogue that we soon learn that Crusoe has a different idea of his purpose and we discover Crusoe’s bravery and strong will that he demonstrates throughout the novel.  The narrative of Crusoe’s journey not only gives the reader insight into Crusoe’s thoughts and fears but allows the reader the opportunity to empathize with his loneliness and find happiness in his successes.  When Friday reaches the island the dialogue becomes a challenge as Crusoe must teach Friday to speak English which is one of the many ways Crusoe imposes his English principals on him.

            Like Crusoe’s journey from home to make a life of his own, Lucy in Jamaica Kincaid’s novel leaves her home in the West Indies to work in America.  Lucy may physically be in a new land but the memories of the colonization and oppression she faced at home colors her view of the world.  It is clear that Lucy’s memories of home are associated with negative feelings of her mother and of the things that she would rather forget.  Lucy’s memory of being forced to memorize a poem about flowers comes to her thoughts when Mariah talks about spring and the daffodils.  When Mariah takes Lucy to see the daffodils she compares the scene to the colonization of her home saying that it is “a scene of conquered and conquests; a scene of brutes masquerading as angels and angels masquerading as brutes (30).”  Mariah is imposing her idea of beauty just as Lucy’s teachers did by forcing her to read Wordsworth’s poem.

            In this novel Mariah and Lewis seem to represent the American ignorance of colonialism.  They often laugh at Lucy’s struggle to assimilate to American culture.  When Lucy says something that seems odd they tend to joke about it and make Lucy feel even more uncomfortable then she already is.  An example would be the time that Lucy tells Mariah and Lewis of a dream she had and they comment that Lucy needs an appointment with Dr. Freud implying that her dream was so strange she may benefit from psychoanalysis.  Just as the American’s try to understand Lucy, as “the other” Lucy tries to understand them and repeatedly thinks “how does a person get to be that way (7)?”  Lucy tries desperately to understand this new and strange place in which she finds herself. 

            In Jamaica Kincaid’s, A Small Place, Kincaid paints a picture of post-colonial Antigua with such passion that it is easy to feel her emotions through her writing.  Kincaid makes it clear that she feels the colonizer can not be understood as anything less than a villain.  She describes how the Europeans work to change people into English but cannot fully succeed because the color of their skin is different.  Kincaid describes the ways in which the English enmesh themselves and work to change everything about Antiguan’s culture.  This seems to be most profound in the statement about English influence when Kincaid says, “For isn’t it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime (94).”

            Kincaid continues to show how the English referred to the people of Antigua as “others” and describes how they were made to feel less intelligent or incapable of doing the same things that the Europeans could do because they look different.  Colonialism stripped them of their way of life, their identity, and individualism only to have it replaced by Europeans trying to make them all the same, English.